JANUARY 16, 1960

MONTEREY, Calif.—As is usual, the other day in Los Angeles a press conference at 11:30 in the morning
meant a terrific amount of paraphernalia for TV and radio reporters and photographers,
and even two youngsters from a high-school newspaper, cluttering up Mrs. Hershey Martin's
living room. By lunchtime, however, all their belongings were back on the little trucks
they trundle around and the house looked like a home again.

We went to Romanoff's for lunch. There was no mail awaiting us in Los Angeles, so
both Miss Corr and I could have a quiet afternoon. She caught up with an accumulated
batch of letters and I got a good rest and was prepared at a quarter before six to
go to what I supposed would be a quiet Quaker dinner, since I was speaking for the
Society of Friends' legislative committee. I had carefully looked up on my itinerary
in the morning the subject I was expected to speak about.

The dinner party, at Mrs. Julian Sarote's home, turned out to be a large and delightful
one. I sat by Dr. Linus Pauling, who in his very gentle way tried to tell me that I had been wrong to withdraw from
the Australian meeting of peace organizations.

I am afraid, however, I am still not convinced, but I will try to have sent to him
some of the material that had been sent to me. He told me that the reported form in
which certain resolutions had been passed was quite untrue and that they were all
entirely acceptable.

All of this information I shall pass on to those who questioned rather seriously whether
the group calling this conference was not a Communist-dominated group. They felt it
was in much the same category as the occasional other "peace" meetings, such as the
youth group meeting in Vienna last summer.

When I arrived at the dinner I happened to have an opportunity to look at the chairman's
time schedule and, to my amazement, I found I was scheduled to speak on a subject
quite different from the one I had on my schedule. Fortunately, for me, I do not speak
from a prepared text, so I had given nothing out to the press. This system has its
disadvantages, though, because the press rarely comes to listen and you get very little
mention of your remarks in the papers. Still, it makes it very much easier on the
platform if you have to make a quick change. I rapidly rearranged my thoughts and
no one else was disturbed.

Wednesday afternoon we took the plane for Fresno, and stayed in a delightful motel,
El Rancho. In both Los Angeles and in Fresno in the evening I had audiences of from
2,500 to 3,000 people.

It rained all night in Fresno and was still raining as we started at 8:30 in the morning
on Thursday for Sacramento. That was a full day and I will tell you about it in another
column.

I wonder how many of you noticed a few days ago a little paragraph in the newspapers
which I read and which stated that France had discovered a large underground lake
in the Sahara. This would mean possible irrigation of the whole desert.

We know that at one period long, long ago this was the breadbasket of Europe, and
I wonder if we will see that again in our time.